This Fall
at
SoHarlem
Thursday, September 24,2026 6PM-8PM
Fashion Meets Story: A Conversation with Industry Pioneer Paul Tazewell
Paul Tazewell is an acclaimed costume designer with a career spanning over three decades across theater, film, and television. His legendary screen designs include the Oscar-winning costumes for Wicked—which also earned him BAFTA and CDG awards— as well as West Side Story and The Wiz Live! On Broadway, Tazewell’s groundbreaking work on Hamilton,Death Becomes Her, and Suffs has earned him multiple Tony Awards and nominations. His celebrated portfolio also extends to prestigious international opera and ballet productions.
Interviewed by Harriette Cole is a bestselling author, syndicated advice columnist, speaker, and veteran media trainer. Her distinguished editorial career includes leadership roles as Editor-in-Chief of Ebony and Fashion Director at Essence. She has advised major brands and talent across entertainment and corporate sectors, including Spotify, AARP, and Def Jam. Harriette hosts AARP's Real Conversations and is the founder of Dreamleapers, an educational platform featuring coaching, workshops, a podcast, and weekly meditation programs.
Saturday, September 26, 2026 2:00-4:00PM
Curator’s Spotlight: Celebrating BIPOC Creatives
Adrienne Jones
Tenured Pratt Institute fashion
professor and co-curator of The
Black Dress exhibition, which
celebrates Black designers and
advocates for diversity in fashion.
The landmark exhibition
showcased a rich array of
contemporary designs, educating
the NewYork fashion community
and broader audiences on the vital
contributions of Black creatives.
April Walker
Pioneer, innovator, and founder of
Walker Wear, April Walker is the
first woman to launch an urban
fashion brand, effectively
jumpstarting the multi-billion-
dollar streetwear industry. Referred
to by Fab 5 Freddy as the 'Coco
Chanel of hip-hop urban fashion,'
she has collaborated with icons
from Run-DMC and Queen Latifah
to Shaquille O'Neal. Her
contributions to global fashion
trends were recently featured in
FIT’s Fresh, Fly, Fabulous: 50Years
of Hip Hop Style exhibition.
Tanya Meléndez-
Escalante
Welcome - Tanya Meléndez-
Escalante , SoHarlem Board
Member Senior Curator of Education and
Public Programs at Fashion
Institute of Technology. Winner of
2026 Vilcek Prize honoring
immigrant leaders in Fashion and
Culture. She is also an author and
her most recent publication, Latin
American and Latinx Fashion
Design Today IModa Hoy!
Thursday, October 1, 2026 6-8PM
Affinities of Solidarity: Connections Among Fire Visionary Artists
A presentation by Alejandro Anreus where he examines the artistic and political dialogue connecting connecting the shared visions:
Alejandro Anreus is emeritus professor of art history and Latin American/Latinx studies at William Paterson University in New Jersey, where he taught from 2001 to 2023. Since Spring 2024 he is a Visiting Lecturer in Art History at Rutgers- Newark. A leading scholar of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx art, his research focuses on modern and contemporary art of Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, Latinx art in the United States, African American art, and the intersections of art and politics in the Americas. As a curator (Montclair Art Museum, Jersey City Museum, Aljiral, Contempory Center for the Arts) he organized survey traveling exhibitions of Jaune Quick-to-See, Melvin Edwards, Freddy Rodríguez, Roberto Estopiñán prints, Juan Sánchez prints, Luis Cruz Azaceta, George McNeil prints and Robert Motherwell's Music Collages.
From 1997 to 2018 he served on the board of directors of the Joan Mitchell Foundation and was its president from 2014 to 2018. In the fall of 2023, he was the Leonard A. Lauder Senior Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Since 2022, he has served as editor of the Rafael Soriano “Catalogue Raisonné” for the Rafael Soriano Foundation in Miami, Florida.
He is the author of numerous publications, including “Modern Art in 1940s Cuba: Havana's Artists, Critics and Exhibitions” (University Press of Florida, 2025). His forthcoming books include The Dark Is Light Enough: The Life and Work of Raúl Milián (Cernuda Arte, 2026); States of Loss/Acts of Resistance: Dictatorship and Transcendence in 11 Caribbean Latinx Artists; and Cuban Art 1959-71: Revolution and Exile, which are currently in progress. His articles and essays have appeared in Art Nexus, Third Text, Art Journal, Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, Diario de Cuba, Commonweal and Café Fuerte.
He is co-curator of the upcoming traveling survey exhibition Juan Sánchez: States of Liberation, which will open at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. in June 2027, then travel to the Whitney Museum and the Museo de Arte in Puerto Rico.
Freddy Rodriguez
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Juan Sanchez
Melvin Edwards
Luis Cruz Azaceta
October 8, 2026 6-8PM
Reflections in Black: A History of Black
Photographers: 1840 to the Present
By Deborah Willis
Deborah Willis, Ph.D., is a University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she also directs the Center for Black Visual Culture. A MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Cohen Fellow, Dr. Willis is an acclaimed artist, author, and one of the nation’s foremost historians of Black photography and visual culture. Her widely celebrated publications include Posing Beauty and the NAACP Image Award–winning Envisioning Emancipation. She sits on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as Board Chair of the Andy Warhol Foundation. Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers: 1840 to the Present, received the 2026 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for Dr. Willis’ 25th anniversary expanded edition.